


Liminal Space

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Project Happy Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 21:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve turned to leave, Sam probably should have just let him go. He was a vet like any other, someone who just wanted to talk to someone who understood. Sam could be okay with that, was comfortable in that role, but instead he called out, “Hey!”</p><p>Steve turned around, a twist of his spine that did interesting things to the lines of his hips. “Yeah?” </p><p>“I get off at six,” Sam said, completely, entirely skipping over the part of the conversation that ended in a question mark. Steve’s expressive brows curled, one climbing up his forehead, lips stretching into a bemused smile. “If you’d like some company,” Sam added smoothly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liminal Space

**Author's Note:**

> For Project Happy Steve! It's not midnight yet where I am, so it still counts. Beta'ed by the magnificent Synteis on very short notice.

 

Steve almost ran past him, but he’d been a good sport, served as a moving target to make Steve’s run more interesting, and did his damndest to keep up. It didn’t hurt that he was nice to run behind. Steve adjusted his path and slowed to a walk, approaching his morning’s running partner at an oblique angle. Steve still had trouble talking to ladies sometimes, but walking up to the stranger in a gray Air Force sweatshirt felt as easy as breathing.

“Need a medic?” Steve asked.

“Need a new set of lungs,” he answered, looking up at Steve with no spark of recognition, no slack-jawed shock, excitement, fear, or adoration. It was a nice look. Even in a city full of recognizable faces, Steve didn’t get away with approaching a stranger for playful banter often. He held up a hand, twitching his fingers in a silent request for assistance.

Steve helped Sam Wilson, formerly of the 58th Squadron, off the ground and immediately ran out of interesting things to say. He’d never been good at small talk, and the last several years hadn’t left him a lot of opportunities to practice – most of the new people he met during the War were soldiers themselves, victims, or enemies. None of them were looking for meaningless chatter. Waking up, he found that he suddenly had no common ground with anyone he encountered, and he didn’t know how to talk to people unless he was giving them orders.

“Must’ve freaked you out coming home after the whole defrosting thing, huh?”

And that was the end of the pleasant banter. Steve couldn’t blame anyone for being curious – even in a world of miracles and superheroes, a man waking up after nearly seventy years in ice was unusual, worth mentioning. Steve just didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He let out a disappointed breath, held back a laugh at his own foolishness.

“It takes some getting used to,” he admitted. “Good to meet you, Sam.”

He couldn’t be too disappointed with the morning – he had a nice run without being chased by anyone with a cellphone, spent thirteen miles of that run looking forward to the next lap, and even managed some benign flirting. It was a good day. His mandatory SHIELD-issued counselor would be proud of him.

“It’s your bed, right?”

Steve stopped and turned around, eyebrows coming together, not sure if the question was going to be a lead in to an offer for a roll in the hay – that happened more than he liked – or some kind of sales pitch to put his name on a mattress brand.

“What’s that?”

“Your bed,” Sam repeated, “It’s too soft. When I was over there, I’d sleep on the ground, use rocks for pillows like a caveman. Now I’m home, lying in my bed and it’s like…”

“Lying on a marshmallow,” Steve supplied, nodding. “Feel like I’m going to sink right through to the floor.” He did sleep on the floor most nights, back pressed against the wall, the bed between him and the door, his shield never out of arms’ reach.  Their eyes connected for the first time, and Steve felt something of himself reflected back at him, a mute understanding that said _I sleep on the floor too_. “How long?” Steve asked. He didn’t need to ask where, it was all the same – a trench in France, a sandy beach on a tropical island, a bitter landscape of rocks and sun.

Sam’s face clouded over, lips turning down from his welcoming smile. “Two tours,” he confirmed. The smile came back, beautiful and brilliant. “You must miss the good old days, huh?”

It was a question that never ceased to astound Steve, as if his War was somehow a thing of glory, as if he might have enjoyed it, missed eating tinned meat and beans at three times the rate of the average soldier, aware that one of his meals could feed another man for a day and a half, the mud, never being dry, the stench of unwashed male flesh and slowly rotting feet. Even with the understanding in Sam’s eyes, the set of his shoulders, his spine straight where he stood, unconsciously at rest, Steve didn’t say that. Instead, he ran down a list of the modern conveniences like he did for the reporters, and the fifth grade class he visited the week before, and the mom chasing after a puppy the week before that. Better food, diseases that were common in his day all but eradicated, a thousand libraries’ worth of information at his fingertips. The conversation normally wound down after that, or they tried to argue that things must have been better during the forties, when really, it was so much the same in a different window dressing.

Sam replied with, “Marvin Gaye, 1972, _Trouble Man_ soundtrack. Everything you missed jammed into one album.”

Pleasantly surprised to be wrong again, Steve dug the curled notebook out of his back pocket and added it to the list, disappointed when his phone went off in his pocket. There were only half a dozen people who sent him text messages, and it was far too early for Tony or Clint, so he wasn’t surprised to be summoned to work.

“Thanks for the run,” he said sincerely, reaching out for Sam’s hand. He had a strong, comfortable grip. Feeling light and playful, he added, “If that’s what you want to call running.”

Sam’s laughter in response was warm, pleasant, the vocal equivalent of a shiver. “Is that how it is?” he asked, and he didn’t even hesitate to wonder if Steve understood the reference.

“Oooh, that’s how it is,” Steve confirmed.

Being invited to visit Sam at work wasn’t exactly like being asked on a date, but it sure felt like it.

~*~

After spending the previous morning stretching his hamstring by putting his foot in his mouth, Sam was startled to look up and find Steve Rogers leaning on the doorframe of his meeting room. After a cumulative three years in one of the most stressful, unpredictable political landscapes the world currently had to offer, Sam was good at not letting things like _completely losing his shit_ inside show on the outside. He was on a kind of duty himself, and he was supposed to be a safe harbor in the storm for the vets who came to his meets, and definitely was not supposed to squeal like a kid on Christmas at the podium.

He kept his eyes on his group, and didn’t offer Rogers a seat. The man could probably use a support group after the hell he’d walked through, but Sam didn’t put that on people, didn’t act like he could have a five minute conversation with a vet and tell them what they needed. Steve stayed through the end of the meet and slipped around the doorframe just as it was breaking up, disappearing from sight.

Sam thought he’d left when he heard the even _thump-thump_ of a man with perfect posture, somewhere around two hundred forty pounds, a textbook thirty-inch stride.

“Look who it is,” he said, as if Captain America came to chat with him after group every damn day, “The running man.”

Steve leaned against the wall, looking every inch the GQ model in comfortable clothing, clean and perfectly pressed the way Sam thought only existed on magazine covers, but there he was. He must be one of those fabled folk who ironed their jeans. They talked unhappy shop. He didn’t talk about Riley much, tried to keep it simple and vague when he needed to share, but Rogers looked like he understood, just the same way he had the morning before, a simple nod and a straightforward question that cut right through the surface answer and yanked the truth out of him. It felt good, cleansing, that sense of relief he saw on a group member’s face sometimes when they realized they weren’t among blank platitudes and the glassy eyes of civilians who could never understand.

When Steve turned to leave, Sam probably should have just let him go. He was a vet like any other, someone who just wanted to talk to someone who understood. Sam could be okay with that, was comfortable in that role, but instead he called out, “Hey!”

Steve turned around, a twist of his spine that did interesting things to the lines of his hips. “Yeah?”

“I get off at six,” Sam said, completely, _entirely_ skipping over the part of the conversation that ended in a question mark. Steve’s expressive brows curled, one climbing up his forehead, lips stretching into a bemused smile. “If you’d like some company,” Sam added smoothly.  

Turning, Steve gave Sam his full attention, assessing, calm. Sam wondered if it was the same look he gave any number of enemies, a cat’s gaze, considering the energy needed to take down prey. The smile that bloomed across his face could have put a spotlight to shame. He looked younger, more… normal. Happy.

“There’s a coffee shop two blocks to the south,” he said after a moment, hands sliding into his pockets. He nodded, turned, and walked out, turning sideways automatically as he slid through the door to keep from hitting it with his shoulders.

Sam stared at the closed door for several seconds. “I just asked Steve Rogers on a date,” he said numbly. A woman walking past him glanced at him curiously. He grinned like a school boy. “I just asked Steve Rogers on a date,” he repeated, “And he just said yes!”

She smiled back at him, slowly as if she didn’t actually mean to, the power of an infectious smile. She shrugged, lips moving, at a loss for a words when Sam asked, “He did say yes, didn’t he?”

~*~

He had a date. An actual date. Not an invitation for sex, or a thinly veiled cover for an interview, or meeting disguised as a social appointment, but an actual date. Steve stopped at the corner and just grinned while he waited for the light to change, unable to keep the goofy smile off his face. A big part of him was reluctant to walk away from the VA at all, just in case Sam changed his mind, or disappeared, or _Steve_ disappeared – he could get a call for a mission at any time, the next catastrophe could be waiting until 5:47 to strike, and Steve didn’t have Sam’s phone number, had no way to get word to him if he was called away, and Sam would show up at the coffee shop and think Steve stood him up, or that he didn’t understand he was being asked on a date, or-

“Light’s green, mister,” a little voice said somewhere around his knee.

The girl’s mother yanked her away from Steve sharply, giving Steve a tight smile as if that grudging politeness erased the implication that he might have wanted to hurt her daughter. Steve blinked after the mother’s retreating back, let her get several yards ahead of him, and stepped into the crosswalk. He wasn’t sure if it really was more dangerous to be a child in this century, or if the availability of the media just made it seem like it was, but Steve couldn’t really fault her for being over cautious. Better over cautious than to have some stranger walk off with her daughter. The everyday encounter knocked him out of his panicky spiral. He decided to stop at the coffee shop as a compromise between hovering at the VA’s front doors and rushing home to try on every t-shirt he owned. He ordered a _venti-double-something-something-half-something-whatever-she-just-ordered-with-vanilla sprinkles, please_ and sat in the sun with his sketch pad, his shield concealed in a large artist’s portfolio along with a bag of pencils, a pallet of watercolors, and two sketch books.

Taking out his favorite 2B pencil, Steve dragged his hand over the page, sketching out the young couple seated on the park bench in a few quick lines, the elderly Asian man with his pug, a police officer writing out a ticket with his bike resting against his inner thigh, a tiny brown bird that landed briefly on his table, a cat lounging in the sun.

 _Going 4 drinks w/girls from security come with u will like michelle,_ Natasha texted him an hour into his wait.

 _Thank you for the invitation, but I’m going to decline. I hope you have fun, though,_ Steve typed back. He’d picked up texting slang the same way he picked up everything else, and he could have used it, but he enjoyed making people underestimate him, and meeting their expectations was one way to achieve that. He suspected that Natasha did exactly the same thing in reverse, choosing to use the often-times confusing text slang when she might have otherwise used full sentences. He was still more than a little sore with Natasha over the mess aboard the ship, disappointed in Fury and SHIELD over Project Insight, and not thinking about any of that right now. He set the phone face-down on the table and took another sip of his drink. It was mostly just ice-melt, but he was reluctant to pay another seven dollars for a second one.

He became very aware of the time as his watch ticked closer to six, and by five-past, it took concerted effort to keep his leg from bouncing with nerves and anxiety. It was his first real solo date, and he didn’t have a clue what to do, or what to talk about. Growing up, Bucky always took care of that for him – he invited the girls, picked the activity, even chose Steve’s clothes most of the time – and he wouldn’t call the few rushed evenings spent in someone else’s company dates. He’d never made the date with Peggy, and hadn’t really had the time or the inclination since waking up in a fake bedroom with the wrong baseball game playing on the radio.

“I didn’t know if you’d actually show.”

Steve looked up, startled to see Sam standing in front of his table, so caught up in his own head that he’d completely missed the other man’s approach. He recovered with a severe look and turned his phone over, clicking on the display so he could see the time.

“You’re the one who’s late,” he pointed out, hiking an eyebrow.

Sam snorted in amused disbelief. “I said I got _off_ at six.”

“It’s a three minute walk from the VA to here. Five if the light’s against you.” It didn’t occur to him until after it was out of his mouth that the analysis might seem a little strange.

If Sam noticed or minded, he didn’t let on. Rolling his eyes, he kicked a toe at Steve’s shoe. “Maybe with these stilts you call legs.”

“I’m only an inch taller than you are,” Steve protested, “Two at the most.” Actually, it was two and about a third, but it was hard to tell with the shoes sometimes, and Steve found that most people who didn’t operate with super-soldier processing speeds found exact measurements unnerving at best and suspicious at worst.

“Right, sure,” Sam said. “I’m going to grab some caffeine. Can I get you something?” He nudged his thumb toward the door, weight shifting to move.

Steve disregarded his first impulse to decline, hesitated, reminded himself that it was a date, and Sam had asked him out, and, heck, Steve had no idea what date protocol looked like at all. In his time, a fella was expected to pay for his date, and dates like this just didn’t happen out in public between two men, and things were so different in the way people treated each other and what they expected from each other.

“Earth to Rogers?” Sam waved a hand in front of Steve’s face. “You _do_ need some caffeine,” he observed with a laugh, “How about I just grab you whatever the strongest…” he picked up Steve’s cup and turned it in his hand, “Venti-double-something-something-half-something-whatever-she-just-ordered-with-vanilla sprinkles. That is impressive, fitting all that on the cup.” Looking up, he asked, “Sound good?”

Steve nodded. “Thanks.”

He watched Sam forging through the gathering crowd to the counter, holding the cup casually as if the young lady behind the counter would actually be able to replicate a _venti-double-something-something-half-something-whatever-she-just-ordered-with-vanilla sprinkles._ When Sam returned with what looked like the exact same sugar-cream-sugar-and-whipped cream creation as the first one, Steve gave the young woman an impressed salute through the window. She jumped, cheeks going pink, and spun around quickly, hiding her face with one hand.

Sam laughed. “Like she’s really going to forget _your_ order. I think she might have saved the old cup.”

“That’s…” Steve tried to think of a word that didn’t sound like _disturbing_ , but wasn’t a lie either.

“Hey, man, don’t dwell on it too hard. You’d probably be the highlight of her day even if you weren’t… well, you.”

Steve barked a surprise laugh. “Thanks. I think.” He sipped at the drink, trying to determine if it was, in fact, the same _venti-double-something-something-half-something-whatever-she-just-ordered-with-vanilla sprinkles_ , but honestly most of the sugary coffee blends tasted the same to him. “How was the rest of your day?” he asked finally, groping for something to say.

“Pretty standard for a Tuesday. Had another group session, filed paperwork.” He shrugged and then nudged his chin toward Steve’s sketchpad, resting his paper cup of hot coffee on the arm of the metal chair. “Looks like your day’s been pretty relaxing.”

Steve considered just telling him all about spending the previous evening fighting pirates, and the morning learning that the so-called World Security Council functioned a lot more like the mob than most people would be okay with, but he wouldn’t be surprised if SHIELD had an agent or twelve spying on him, listening in with their spy gear, maybe just a bug attached to his jacket. It was enough to make any man paranoid, and he was gaining a new appreciation for Tony’s prickliness. He dismissed the idea and instead nudged the sketchbook over in mute permission.

Sam flipped through the pages slowly, sipping cautiously at his coffee. His eyes didn’t just drift over the page and make a snap judgment of _pretty, strange, cool, nose too big, eyes too small_ , but he examined the drawings with a sharp attention to detail. Steve could practically redraw any of them just by following the motion of Sam’s eyes.

“I’m impressed,” Sam concluded finally. “Brawn _and_ creativity. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.”

Steve doubted that, but he didn’t say anything. “Thanks. I did two years of art school,” he confessed on a whim, something he barely even remembered doing. Stacked up against everything else, it seemed more like a dream, someone else’s story, the struggling bachelor working three jobs to support himself through art classes, grateful that he didn’t need a lot of calories in a day. Steve didn’t know how he would have managed it if he’d needed the kind of calories then that his larger body demanded.

As if waiting for a cue, his stomach grumbled. His metabolism usually meant eating a full meal about every three hours, and the coffee wasn’t cutting it. Sam laughed briefly, flipping the sketchbook closed.

“That your way of telling me to hurry up?”

“You _were_ late,” Steve answered, smiling back.

Sam stood and jerked his head down the street. “You like Italian?”

“I grew up in Brooklyn,” Steve said by way of answer, but then added, “I eat almost anything.”

Giving him a wicked look, Sam asked, “ _Anything_?”

“ _Almost_ anything,” Steve stressed. “Jello doesn’t sit well with me.”

Laughing, Sam surmised, “The jiggling?”

Steve nodded. “The jiggling.”

They fell quiet as they walked, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable sort of quiet. It reminded him a little of walking with Bucky and a little of walking with Peggy. With Bucky, they didn’t talk much because they didn’t have to. It was easy to space off walking next to his friend, comfortable enough with him there to not need to pay so much attention to his surroundings. With Peggy, he was constantly aware of her presence, the tickling, warm sense of her, but he was comfortable with her too, didn’t feel the need to fill in every silence with babbling.

“Just to clarify,” Steve broke in after a block of silence, “This _is_ a date, right?”

Sam gave him an assessing look, and asked, “Do you want it to be?”

Steve had the sense that he could say no and the evening would be just the same. He could have a good friend in Sam, his first friend outside of the madness that surrounded SHIELD and The Avengers. Steve was as sure as he could be that Sam wasn’t a SHIELD plant, and it would be nice to have that.

“I do,” Steve decided. “I do want it to be. Is that okay?”

Letting out a noisy breath, Sam smiled broadly at him, “I’m the one who asked _you_ out.”

“Actually you just told me when you were going to be off work. Technically, I’m the one who proposed doing something about it.”

“Oh, is that how you think it went down?”

Nodding, Steve said, “That is _exactly_ how it went down.”

“I’ve got witnesses,” Sam warned.

“What witness in the world is going to contradict Captain America?”

Sam blinked at him, maybe surprised that Steve pulled the Captain America cat out of the bag. He whistled lowly, stopping in front of a small red-brick restaurant with a red awning and candles in the window. “You are a dangerous man, Steve Rogers.”

“Did you ever doubt it?”

~*~

Steve paid for the hearty meal by virtue of slipping the waiter his debit card while Sam was in the bathroom, not willing to let Sam pay for what equaled a dinner for four, but he didn’t protest when Sam slid several crisp bills across the counter to rent a bowling lane and two pairs of dingy red and blue bowling shoes.

“I didn’t really think this through very well,” Sam confessed ten minutes later, staring down the lane at the black arm sweeping fallen pins out of the way to reset for Sam’s turn.

Steve laughed and ran his fingernails over the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he apologized, “I can’t really help it anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could,” Sam sniffed, “You’re just having fun making a fool out of me.”

“I’d offer to let you blindfold me-”

“So you can show off some more?”

“-But I might end up hurting someone.” Steve resisted a childish urge to stick his tongue out and sat back down, sprawling comfortably over the white plastic chairs. The bowling alley had seen better days, but it wasn’t empty. Two lanes at the far end were occupied by a large group of teenagers in formal dance wear, and the two lanes opposite had a host of people in matching shirts, surreptitiously watching Steve lay down strikes.

“You know,” Sam complained, not getting out of his chair when Steve’s green ball hissed up through the chute and clunked against Sam’s gold-speckled purple one, “Bowling is _supposed_ to be something that no one is good at. It’s fool-proof, safe first date material.”

“Is this where you take all your fellas, then?” Steve guessed.

He meant for it to come off like a joke, but Sam was too perceptive by half to let it slide. The silly humor faded, Sam’s facing showing a remarkable shift from open and carefree, to calm and serious. He glanced down the alley at the kids, a girl marching up to the lane in her puffy blue skirt, carrying the ball in the crook of her arm like a doll, her friends laughing as she tried to get her skirts under control.

“I haven’t been on a date with a guy in a six years,” Sam confessed, “And six months since the last time I was out with a woman. I know it’s hard to believe with all this game I’m waving around, but I don’t get out much.” The grin crept back across his face, once again smooth and confident.

“I’m not sure if I get the game reference,” Steve said slowly. He waited for Sam to open his mouth to explain before finishing, “Because you’re losing by about sixty points.”

“You’ve got jokes.” Sam nodded, waving one finger, “I see how you are.” He picked up his ball, lined himself up, and threw a perfect strike, turning around before the ball was even halfway down the lane. Crossing one arm over his chest and holding the opposite hand up, he counted down three-two-one-jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and smirked at the clatter of pins.

Eventually a representative from the blue-shirted Shark’s Alley Bowling League, and the red-shirted Mean Machines Bowling League wandered over to invite them into their game. Steve obligingly put on a spare button-up blue shirt that was three sizes too large, and laughed at Sam in a red shirt that was two sizes too small.

Sam might have been better than he let on, but Steve’s Sharks still thoroughly trounced his Mean Machines.

~*~

“Is it too old fashioned for me to ask to see you home?” Steve wondered as they stood outside the bowling alley, bathed in a circle of flickering golden light.

Sam glanced at him sideways. “Depends on whether or not you want to see my etchings.”

Startled, Steve twisted to look at him. “That’s not a new reference.” When Sam didn’t say anything in response, he asked, “Do you _want_ me to see your etchings?”

“Maybe I do,” Sam said with slow deliberation.

Steve wanted that. The desire rushed through him with such instant speed and heat that he felt cauterized by it, shocked by the sudden strength of it. He swallowed hard, took a slow breath, told his body to behave.

“Isn’t that a third date kind of thing?” he asked finally, despite the clamoring of his body.

Sam shrugged. “Can be. Doesn’t need to be. Can be a tonight thing, or a never thing, or a six month thing. But you can still see me home, if you want.”

Steve nodded. “I would like to.” _Make sure you’re safe_.

They took a cab out to Sam’s condo, the silence between them heavier than the comfortable walk from the coffee shop, Steve painfully aware of the heat of Sam’s arm brushing against his, the electric inch that separated their pinkies on the seat, the spicy/earthy/coppery scent of him. Steve’s breath was heavy and sharp by the time the cab stopped at Sam’s address, and he didn’t tell the driver to wait. Sam didn’t say a word as he led the way to the door, the tension in his shoulders the only indication that he might be as keyed up as Steve was, that maybe his stomach was flipping in anticipation, skin tingling.

“Just so we’re clear,” Sam said over his shoulder, fitting the key in the lock, “I’m still expecting a rematch at the alley.”

He kicked the door open and grabbed Steve’s wrist before he could say a word, yanking him into the entryway. Steve flowed with the motion, shoving Sam into the wall by the door, reaching out with one foot to kick it shut, their lips meeting in a hard clash. The door slammed harder than he expected, and he winced, pulling back. Sam laughed at him, the sound happy and musical. He flipped the lock with one finger, tossed his keys to the side table, and gently took Steve’s portfolio out of his hand.

“Bed’s this way.” He walked backwards through the kitchen, thumbs playing with his belt, easily navigating around the kitchen table, sidestepping the edge of the counter, his gaze playful and inviting.

Steve stalked after him, caught him in the hallway. “Bed’s too soft,” he explained, grabbing him by the belt and walking him back into the wall. He mouthed a soft kiss over Sam’s jaw, working the buckle open, mindful of the roaring impatience in his gut, the tremor in his hands. Sam turned into his kiss, capturing his lips, darting his tongue out to run it over Steve’s teeth.

“You don’t have to be so gentle with me,” Sam whispered, voice husky, “I’m stronger than you think.”

“ _I’m_ stronger than I think,” Steve replied, but he grabbed Sam’s belt by the buckle and yanked it out, sending it clattering to the floor down the hall. Sam responded by shoving his jacket down his arms and Steve was momentarily trapped in it, laughing helplessly as Sam tried to pull it away while Steve stretched his arms in front of him to reach his left cuff, and they ended up tangled, fighting against the pull of the fabric.

“Alright, stop,” Sam commanded through barely suppressed laughter. “Don’t move.”

Steve obligingly held still and Sam pushed away from the wall, stepping behind him to strip the jacket away. It fell to the hall carpet with a hushed whisper of fabric, and Sam’s hands settled on his waist. He worked Steve’s t-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, his hands pleasantly cool on Steve’s sides as he pushed it up. He bent to put a kiss to Steve’s spine, and then nudged his arms.

“Up.”

“You told me not to move,” Steve protested, twisting to look over his shoulder.

Sam glared at him. “Put your damn arms up.”

Chuckling, Steve did as he was told, and Sam stripped the fabric away. Sam molded their bodies together, skimming his hands over Steve’s ribs, tracing the lines of his pecs, stopping to tweak his nipples. Steve jumped, pebbles rising on his skin.

“Sensitive?” Sam guessed.

“Everywhere,” Steve affirmed. He leaned back into Sam’s body, enjoying the warmth and the closeness, not even realizing how much he missed being touched until that moment with Sam’s mouth running over the back of his neck.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” Sam murmured and punctuated the point by sinking his teeth into the swell of Steve’s shoulder, dragging a ragged gasp out of him.

It had never occurred to any of Steve’s lovers – or, indeed, Steve himself – that he might be the one accidentally hurt in an encounter, and it warmed him that Sam thought of it, realized that Steve was sensitive and coming to the correct conclusion that it was sometimes _too sensitive_. His hands were gentle working Steve’s jeans open, fingertips sliding under the waistband of his boxers, teeth and lips and tongue tracing the major muscle groups on his back like he meant to cut Steve open.

His pants dropped to his ankles and Steve shifted his weight to toe his shoes off, stumbling briefly getting out of the legs of the jeans and catching the wall for balance. He twisted in Sam’s arms to put his back to the wall, tugging at Sam’s shirt to even the score between them. Even in the partial darkness of the hallway, Steve found the contrast of his skin on Sam’s breathtaking, as sharp and perfect as if they’d been drawn this way, pulled out of paper with charcoal.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” Sam breathed, tracing an invisible pattern on Steve’s chest.

Made bold by the hazy glint in his eyes, Steve reached forward and cupped a hand over the front of his jeans. “I think I can figure it out.”

~*~

He woke on the hall floor as the morning sun slanted through the blinds in the bedroom and crept through the door. Sam slept soundly against his chest, the cadence of his breath, the rhythm of his heartbeat instantly soothing something in Steve that he didn’t know needed soothing. Steve lay still, trying not to wake him, but abruptly aware of all the places that ached from a night spent in one position. His nose started to itch immediately, and there was a button jammed into his hip.

“’m really tempted to see how long you’ll pretend to be a mattress,” Sam mumbled after several minutes of Steve carefully not-moving.

“All day if you want me to,” Steve offered, “But a bathroom break might be nice first.”

Sam made a warm, sleepy noise and rolled over, stretching. “Guess so,” he acquiesced generously, pushing himself upright. Steve took advantage of the light to watch the play of muscles under his skin, reached out and traced over the raised edges of a scar down his side.

Looking down, Sam explained, “Bad landing.”

Steve didn’t ask him to elaborate, but he pulled his hand away before he got caught up examining every inch of Sam’s skin. “Bathroom?”

“Second door on the…” Sam twisted one way, and then the other, charmingly drowsy. “That one,” he concluded, pointing a closed door.

Steve made quick work of the bathroom, squeezed a line of toothpaste onto his finger and ran it vigorously over his teeth and tongue. He preferred the tooth powder that Natasha found for him after he complained about the foam of modern toothpaste, but he did have to admit that the powerful mint flavor was nice.

He found Sam sprawled on the couch in a pair of slinky gray sweatpants, automatically catching the blur of blue and white fabric that flew at his face as soon as he stepped around the corner. The little stars around the waistband were almost too much. He hiked an eyebrow at Sam, who grinned at him unrepentantly.

“I vote you make breakfast,” Sam said, dropping back against the arm of the couch.

“It’s your kitchen,” Steve pointed out. “I don’t know where anything is.”

“You fucked me on my hall carpet last night, Steve. I think you’re allowed to poke around in my fridge.”

Steve blinked, shrugged, and slid the boxers on. They were comfortably worn, soft with many washes, but he might as well not have been wearing anything at all for as tight as they were. Sam watched him move with a sort of lazy attention that made Steve feel warm and powerful all at once, and it was a struggle to walk casually across the living room when he wanted to drop to his knees at Sam’s feet and crawl into his lap.

“You know,” Sam said casually, “If you’re that uncomfortable with spangled shorts, you can always cook naked.”

Steve snorted. “After my USO stage get-up, there’s not much that makes me uncomfortable anymore.” He tossed a smirk over his shoulder, and if he a made a little production of bending over to look in the fridge, no one could blame him. He found eggs, bacon, cheese, and a wealth of fresh vegetables. Sam let him figure out the kitchen on his own, but padded in after him when Steve turned the stove on. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist and nibbled at the space between his shoulder blades.

“You don’t need to resort to cannibalism,” Steve teased, scrapping a diced onion into the pan and poking it around with a wooden spoon.

“This can be a one night thing,” Sam said after a pause that he spent mapping kisses over Steve’s back, “If you want. Or, honestly, a whatever you want thing. I’m pretty open to this being any kind of thing,” he added with a laugh.

Steve considered it. He’d never had a steady anything. His dance card wasn’t exactly overflowing before the serum, and he hardly stayed in one place more than a night or two after the procedure that changed his life. Peggy was supposed to be his steady-someone, but he’d been stupid with her, waited too long, clung to an ideal of her, an image of them in front of their first little house with a toddler on his shoulders, her belly round with their first daughter. He’d let her slip through his fingers when he knew better than most how quickly the war changed lives, ended lives.

“My life is pretty hectic these days,” Steve said finally, and felt the subtle shift of disappointment in Sam’s posture, “But I _do_ owe you a rematch.”

He could feel Sam’s smile against his back, and it made his pulse stutter. They finished cooking together, a massive omelet so stuffed with vegetables and cheese that it broke when Steve tried to flip it. He muddled it up into scrambled eggs instead while Sam browned toast and poured orange juice. He ate one-handed with Sam’s foot in his lap, idly trailing his fingertips up Sam’s leg, pausing to squeeze his thigh, smirking when he noticed that Sam was slowly sinking in his chair.

Steve couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a day of doing _nothing_. They spent the afternoon on the couch arguing over the comedic merits of “Vicious” while Steve played intentionally slow with the cultural references just to make Sam explain them, and then bent him over the back of the couch and took him slowly to a soundtrack of audience laughter and applause.

“I’ll never be able to watch this show with a straight face again,” Sam panted, laughing breathlessly while the player pulled up the next episode.

Collapsing next to him on the couch, Steve ran a hand over his face and pulled him into his lap. “I can’t see how you could have watched it with a straight face before.”

It was dark by the time he called a cab to take him back to his bike. His phone, blessedly quiet all day, vibrated in his pocket on the way up the stairs. He slid it out, expecting a text from Natasha summoning him to work. The _I get off work at 5:30_ made him grin. He nodded to his neighbor as he passed her in the hall. She smiled, nodded back.

 _There’s this Greek place three blocks south of you I’ve been meaning to try,_ Steve reported back.

_See you then._

 

 


End file.
